"This is the best I could do…"
Somewhere underneath a couple hundred thousand tons of concrete and steel, a woman twisted a few thick wires inside a metal arm and tied them together using a fiber mesh. Akane's new shoulder emitted a soft red light just before an ear piercing screech echoed through the lab.
"Ah. I knew something was wrong!" the woman would say to the arm as she reached for a magnet.
The machine's screams grew louder when she said that, and the light from its reactor gained intensity.
The shoulder began to melt.
"Well at least it isn't exploding…" said the mechanic.
As she said that, the reactor went critical and light poured out from small cracks that formed. Burning wires and molten metal created smoke, and Akane was soon on fire for the second time that week.
Well, just her arm that is.
Akane herself, still rocking the prosthetic hook and pegleg, was about the punch a man sitting behind a desk. He had been a bit too pompous with her—since she wore nothing but a hospital gown and a helmet—which caused the biker to get very angry.
Saved by the bang, the ground beneath Akane and the receptionist trembled as the Earth opened its mouth. Akane was swallowed and fell down the throat of the world, which helped the receptionist in his attempt to avoid a beating. He ran away as fast as he could from the chaos, while Akane fell through the underworld.
Down into Hell's stomach, she went.
The room was torn apart by the blast. The mechanic's body—her upper half crushed underneath miles of rubble—twitched like she was still alive. Water spilled from broken pipes and chemicals spewed onto the floor. Akane gained a few more injuries with the rough landing on her back. As the dust cleared, she brushed off some of the debris from her visor. A steel bar lay just before her eyes; an inch remained of the space needed for her to have landed on it.
All those red syringes she had used hours ago were keeping her awake and active. Luck and strong drugs flowed through her blood for the moment. The broken bones in her body wouldn't hurt until tomorrow came. Reaching, she grabbed the rebar and used it to slide herself away. She then stood up and got a good look at everything that was happening around her.
Smoldering pieces of metal and ground up concrete. Boulders of all sizes piled up near the walls. Smoke slipped under her helmet and tickled her nostrils. An alarm in the background, accompanied by a robotic voice urging people to evacuate, pestered her every second.
She sighed. The annoying receptionist was nowhere to be found.
Out of all the accidents that could have happened, one occurred in the very lab she was supposed to get her new limbs. Thankfully, it didn't seem like everything was lost in the explosion. Climbing down from her slab of concrete, Akane wandered around before spotting what appeared to be a metal suitcase. She lifted it up, found that its lock had been blown off, and decided to open it.
Inside were her new clothes. A synthetic jacket, a plain tee, and a pair of jeans. There were boots, gloves, and a new bag near the bottom. Figuring that no one was alive to watch, she got changed and tossed her hospital gown into the ashes.
Akane put everything she couldn't put on at the moment into her bag. She looked in the suitcase again to check for anything else. There did happen to be a small note signed by Brig. It had been tied onto what looked like a black tube.
She took the tube and tossed the note into a fire.
There were no ways out since everything had been blocked by rubble. Akane knew that climbing up the hole in the ceiling would be impossible since it was too high up. Another explosion in the background warned her that time was limited.
She looked around once more, this time towards the twitching legs in the corner of the room.
Without asking—or thanking the dead for their assistance—Akane pulled off the pants of the corpse and studied what was underneath.
A robotic leg, much better than her own, and somewhat the same size.
She remembered something from her years back in middle school. A class about cybernetics or something. Akane was never one to recall her education, so it certainly didn't help. All she remembered was taking the class and nothing else.
The Messenger made an educated guess. She hugged the leg and lifted it while putting a foot on the crotch of the dead body.
With one swift yank, she pulled the leg—and part of a crushed torso—with a gruesome noise coming from the body. It sounded to Akane like she was playing with wet clay. With a satisfying pop, the leg tore away from the body and clattered as Akane let go. It stopped twitching, but that didn't last very long as it started to move by itself.
The mechanical leg stood up on its own while trailing blood and flesh. The odd machine hopped over to a boulder near the blinking exit sign in the opposite corner of the wall. It hopped, just to get Akane's attention, before suddenly launching itself towards the boulder and…
Blowing it up, with sheer force.
Perhaps this was the limb's way of thanking the girl. Might as well roll with it, thought the Messenger as she followed the hopping leg out from the destroyed lab.